James Rosenthal and Carol Myers co-founded The St. Nicholas Centre (www.stnicholascenter.org), an online site to educate the public about St. Nicholas.

“The church should take back Santa and say this is our story. I think they should take back what really belongs to them in the first place,” Myers said.

The real Santa “doesn’t fly through the air, he walked the Earth and fought for his faith.... Why do we give him up and revere a chubby old elf? It’s not right,” said Rosenthal, director of communications for the Anglican Communion in England.

While the legend of St. Nicholas has been passed down through the centuries, it is hard to know who he really was because there is very little recorded information about him other than he was a fourth-century bishop of Myra, present-day Demre, Turkey.

As legend has it Nicholas was born in about 260 in the port of Patara. He was raised a devout Catholic by his wealthy parents until they died leaving him orphaned and with a sizable inheritance, which he gave away to assist the poor. He dedicated his life to serving God and was made bishop as a young man.

As bishop, St. Nicholas defended the faith despite being imprisoned by the Roman Emperor Diocletian. After his release he attended the first Council of Nicaea in 325, which some people dispute because his name was not mentioned on any of the old lists of bishops. However it is also said his name would not have been recorded because he was thrown out for defending today’s understanding of the Trinity that God and Jesus are equal, condemning the Arian heresy that believed otherwise.

He died Dec. 6, 343, in Myra and was buried in his cathedral church, where a unique relic formed in his grave. This liquid substance, called manna, is said to have healing powers, and is still produced by his relic to this day.

Today, pilgrims and tourists visit Bari, Italy’s Basilica di San Nicola, where St. Nicholas’s relics can be found.

“It’s clear that St. Nicholas was a real saint and that he is a model for living and he, like all the saints, points to Jesus,” said Myers. “People think of St. Nicholas and sentimental gift giving, but he represents a lot more than that for his concern for justice and the weakest and most vulnerable and that makes him a relevant example today.”

Curiously, Rosenthal, an Anglican, and Myers, an elder in the Reformed Church, have no trouble promoting and honouring Nicholas’s sanctity.

“I think he really is the most ecumenical saint,” said Myers. “Because he is so prominent in Western Christianity... and because he’s so recognized in the culture I think he can really bring people together.”

He is the patron of the Russian Orthodox Church, Byzantine Church and Greek Orthodox Church of America. The Eastern Christian rite venerates him as a wonder, or miracle worker, and the Latin rite recognizes him as the patron saint for dozens of groups, among them bakers and pawnbrokers.

Inside St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church in Langley, B.C., there is a one-metre-tall statue of St. Nicholas holding three bags of gold coins. This is a common image representing one of the famous stories about the saint’s good deeds. On three separate occasions he tossed bags or balls of gold secretly through a poor man’s window to pay for the dowry of each of his three daughters so they could avoid being sold into slavery.

Today, many other images or holiday customs can be traced back to St. Nicholas.

Apparently, when St. Nicholas threw the gold through the window it landed in a stocking or shoe drying by the fire. This is why North Americans stick oranges in the toe of the stockings to represent the gold dowry. Others include candy canes to represent the bishop’s staff, gift giving at night or “secret-Santa” gift giving to model how St. Nicholas did his gift giving in secret.

“I think certainly most people of faith believe that Santa Claus is rooted in St. Nicholas,” said Myers.

She said a good way to honour the real St. Nick is to celebrate his feast day on Dec. 6 as a helpful way of keeping a focus on Jesus’ birth.

“Santa points to himself, but St. Nicholas points beyond himself to the manger and Jesus,” Rosenthal said.

At Langley’s St. Nicholas Church, Fr. John McCarthy and his parishioners point to the coming of Christ by throwing an annual winter fair in honour of St. Nicholas.

“He’s connected with that whole sense of his charity,” said McCarthy. “And it is this virtue of generosity that the annual festivities try to cultivate among the children and their parents by encouraging families to buy a gift for the needy and place it under the ‘giving tree.’ ”

Myers said it’s freeing for people to know Santa Claus is rooted in Christianity.

“It’s clear that people love St. Nicholas and it’s almost the more they learn about him, the more they do. People say ‘what a relief we can do Santa after all.’ ”